Football Shorts - All the latest news from Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham, Villa, Leeds United, Bradford City and Huddersfield Town

Christian Eriksen, Dutch football’s latest heir to the Cruyff-crown, is apparently on the hitlist of every club in the whole world apart from Macclesfield Town, Metalurgs Zaparovsny and the LA Lakers, after the Mail attributed a comment to Marc Overmars, saying that the attacking-mid won’t sign a new contract at Ajax this summer.

Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City and Tottenham, are all linked, with Brendan’s boys apparently the favourites, for some reason.

Spanish football is in trouble, and the Premier League looks like it will continue to benefit, as Liverpool are after Malaga’s playmaker Manuel Itarra.

The Chilean is apparently ‘agitating’ for a move away from the Spanish club, and would be available for a knock-down price of £3 million.

Aston Villa midfielder Stephen Ireland, 26, has been frozen out of the squad and forced to train with the club’s youth team. According to the Sun, the midfielder, who actually not-that-bad in his last game for the club against Bradford in the League Cup, is almost certainly on his way out of Villa this summer as his high wages prove to be a hinderance to the strugglers.

Arsenal’s misfit left-back Andre Santos has left the club for the rest of the season to join Gremio on loan.

The Brazilian, who joined from Fenerbache in Arsene’s famous transfer deadline meltdown of August 2011, is currently 3rd (or 4th? who knows) choice left-back for the Gunners, and has been deemed surplus to requirements at the Emirates.

It’s the football gift that keeps on giving and Russian club Anzhi’s director German Tkachenko has ridiculed circus-club QPR for their ostentatious move for Christopher Samba last month.

The hoops signed the Congo defender – who has looked decidedly average in the Russian league – for £12 million from Anzhi, and the former Blackburn man is earning a reported £100,000 per week.

But Tkachenko told The Sun: “At QPR he will earn almost as much as he did at Anzhi. In my view QPR have lost their minds.

“When they agreed to pay his release fee we wept. He wept.

“Everybody says that he ran away from the club but that’s not true.

“He didn’t put any pressure on the club until we received an offer from QPR for £12.5million, the amount required by his contract.”

Dortmund manager Jurgen Klopp has ruled out a move to Chelsea this summer.

PHIL Parkinson is calling on Bradford City to resuscitate their promotion push before the club’s glamour trip to Wembley.The Bantams stunned football by reaching the Capital One Cup final on February 24 against Swansea City, in the process becoming the first team from the fourth tier of English football to reach a major final at the national stadium.

However, before City, who sit 12th in League Two after taking just two points from their last half dozen outings, can turn their attention to Wembley in 12 days, they must travel to Wycombe Wanderers tonight and then bottom club AFC Wimbledon on Saturday.

Manager Parkinson said: “I am frustrated by our league position, I can’t deny that. There are reasons why we are where we are at the moment. And I think people can understand that.

“But we need to get going again. I don’t want us to waste all the hard work that has gone into this season so far by missing out on even a place in the play-offs.

“The good thing is that we still have 17 games to get it right and that is a massive chunk of the season.

FOOTBALL LEAGUE CHAIRMAN Greg Clarke today admitted something in the game may be “terribly wrong” if black players feel unable to report racist abuse.

Footage appeared to show the Senegal international alerting the referee, Mark Halsey, and making stewards aware of his allegations but Millwall insisted no complaint of racist abuse was made by the player.

Clarke, who was at the match in question, told Sky Sports News: “To have our players subjected to such vile and filthy abuse deserves nothing more than the culprits being arrested and facing the full weight of the law.

“There’s two issues, one is we have to continue to work with the clubs on our anti-racism programmes which are agreed with the FA.

“Secondly is the reticence of black players to come forward and feel comfortable in supporting it.

“If we’ve created an environment that doesn’t support black players in confronting this issue we`ve done something terribly wrong.”

MARK LILLIS admits Huddersfield Town will have one eye on the weekend when taking on Leicester City tonight.

Victory at the King Power Stadium would earn the Terriers an FA Cup fifth-round home tie against Wigan Athletic on Sunday.

Defeat, however, to the Foxes will mean Town travelling to Burnley in the Championship and caretaker manager Lillis is adamant the prospect of having three league points at stake this weekend is at the forefront of his mind.

He said: “There might be a few of the young lads who get a chance (at Leicester). We have got to look at the bigger picture of the Burnley game.

“I learned quite quickly at Derby when I went with the same starting XI as had played against Crystal Palace just a few days earlier.

“There were a lot of tired bodies after getting a win and a draw in our previous games (and Town lost 3-0).

“So, I will sit down and look at the Leicester and Burnley games to send out teams that we think can get results. The bread and butter is the Championship.

“Getting a Premier League team would be great, but we have to get the selection right.”

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